Syrup
Food · Pantry & Condiment · Food, Typed Supps
Sugar made from grain starch instead of cane. It sounds gentler than it is.
Stage by stage
- Intake (Low sweetness per gram): Maltose is much less sweet than sucrose, so more tends to be used to reach the same sweetness.
- Small intestine (Maltase splits maltose): Maltase cleaves each maltose into two glucose molecules in a single fast step.
- Absorption (Glucose enters the blood): All of the sugar arrives as glucose, with no fibre or fat to slow it.
- Response (Glycaemic rise): The result is a sharper glucose rise than table sugar, not a gentler one.
Time to effect
- Under an hour: Blood glucose peaks around 30 minutes, earlier and higher than with an equal weight of table sugar.
Allergens
None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.
Eating patterns
Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.
Satiety
Not scored: the satiety index is measured on 240 kcal servings, and nobody eats a 240 kcal serving of this. The question does not apply rather than the answer being unknown.
Environmental footprint
3.2 kg CO2e and 202 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Cane sugar" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.
Cost band
Mid — roughly £5 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.
Key nutrients
Nutrition per 100g
- Calories: 318
- Protein: 6.2g
- Carbohydrate: 75g
- of which sugars: 49g
- Fat: 0g
- of which saturated: 0g
- Fibre: 0g
- Sodium: 35mg
Food vs. supplement
Not applicable in any useful sense. These are sweeteners; the mineral traces they carry from the grain are far too small to be a reason to use them.
Kitchen tip
These syrups are less sweet than sugar but just as sticky and hygroscopic, so a straight one-for-one swap in baking usually gives a wetter, chewier, less sweet result. Reduce other liquids slightly.
Common myth
"Rice malt syrup is a healthy sugar because it has no fructose." In reality: Removing fructose leaves pure glucose-forming maltose, which raises blood glucose faster than table sugar. Both syrups count as free sugars, and neither is a meaningfully better choice than sugar.
More in Pantry & Condiment
In the glossary
Sources